China’s home-grown C919 plane touches down in Hong Kong on ‘historic’ flight

China’s home-grown C919 narrowbody passenger jet landed in Hong Kong on Wednesday morning, marking the aircraft’s first scheduled commercial flight outside the mainland, with the city’s transport minister saying it held “historic significance”.

Amid great fanfare, China Eastern Airlines’ flight MU721 left Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at 8.20am on New Year’s Day and touched down in Hong Kong at 10.45am. The return flight, MU722, took off from Hong Kong International Airport at 1.04pm almost full with passengers. The service will be operate daily.

“The inaugural commercial flight of the C919 between Hong Kong and Shanghai has a very important historic significance for Hong Kong,” Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan said.

“We hope that through this commercial flight, we can bring this historic innovation breakthrough in the mainland’s production of civil aviation aircraft to our Hong Kong residents as well as to international visitors coming to Hong Kong.”

Fire trucks spraying water welcomed the aircraft as it taxied to the gate at 10.53am. Chan handed out souvenirs to passengers as they disembarked from the aircraft at around 11am.

The C919, the country’s first domestically developed narrowbody passenger jet, is comparable with the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family of single-aisle aircraft.